Symbian revenues soar on smartphone sales surge

Royalty boost

Symbian sold 6.75 million smart phone licences during the first quarter of 2005, almost three times more than were shipped during the same quarter of 2004.

The upswing helped the firm to post revenues of £24.8m for the three months to the end of March, compared to revenues of £12.9m in the same quarter of the previous year. Most of the increase came from royalties, while consulting revenues were flat compared to a year ago.

During the quarter, nine new Symbian phones were shipped by Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Nokia and others. There are now 48 models of Symbian-based smart phones, 12 of which are designed for 3G networks.

"Nokia is still the dominant producer of Symbian smartphones, having shipped 5.4 million in the first quarter of 2005," said Canalys analyst Rachel Lashford. "But the interesting thing is that companies like Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and Panasonic also released products during the quarter."

Korea-based Samsung and China-based Lenovo have also announced their intention to bring out smart phones.

According to the latest figures from Canalys, over 10 million "smart mobile devices" were shipped globally during the first quarter of 2005, with converged devices leading the growth. Although sales of PDAs fell six per cent during the quarter, shipments of smartphones rose by 137 per cent.